Make a Ṣohar for the Ark: Archeology Illuminates an Unusual Biblical Word — צֹהַר תַעֲשֶׂה לַתֵּבָה וְאֶׂל-אַמָה תְכַלֶׂנָה מִלְמַעְלָה ,ּופֶׂתַח הַתֵּבָה בְצִדָּה תָשִים ,תַחְתִיִם שְנִיִם ּושְלִשִים תַעֲשֶׂהָ . Make a “Ṣohar” for the ark and finish it within a cubit from above. Put the door to the ark in its side; make it with second and third decks be- low (Genesis 6:16). The word Ṣohar (tzohar) is a Hapax Legomenon—-appearing just once in the entire . Several different meanings have been proposed. The ancient Targumim translate the word variously. The has the word “ἐπισυνάγων,” meaning to gather together. This is hard to understand in (heap up, bind) צבר context, but could indicate a textual variant having the word a “light.” While ”נֵּהֹור“ Onkelos translates it as .צהר instead of Targum Jonathan renders it a “sparkling gem.” The in Rabbah offers two explanations: (1) Ṣohar means window. (2) Ṣohar is a luminous gem- stone. The follows the first opinion of the midrash, translating Ṣohar as fenestram (window). In the Talmud, however, Rabbi Yohanan prefers the sec- ond opinion meaning precious stones. In both cases the explanation is related to lighting the interior decks of the Ark, and is usually understood as being tsahoraim) which means mid-day, when the sun is at) צהרים related to the word its highest point. Some commentators, such as R’ David Kimchi (RaDaK) and Chizkuni reject יצהר to the word צֹהַר the translation of window, instead connecting the word (yiẕhar) which means newly pressed oil. According to them, Ṣohar refers not to a window but to an oil lamp which Noah installed inside the Ark. The second opinion in the midrash is that Ṣohar means a luminous gemstone. In the words of Targum Jonathan, this sounds like something supernatural— “Go thou unto Pishon, and take from thence a precious stone, and fix it in the ark to illuminate you.” In fact, there are many kinds of natural stones that are fluorescent or aventurescent and which give off or reflect light. Interestingly, there was an old nautical practice to build “deck prisms” into the top deck in order to illuminate the lower deck below. These deck prisms were multi- faceted glass lenses built into the deck. The sunlight entering the prism from above would be refracted in many directions and diffuse throughout the lower deck below. The explanation that the Ṣohar could be a precious or cut stone should not simply be dismissed as supernatural—such prisms have in fact been used to illuminate ships. Whether Ṣohar is translated as window, oil lamp, or precious stone, all these early explanations are related to light. The prevailing explanation among modern scholars, however, is that Ṣohar means “roof”, and that Noah was instructed to construct a sloped roof above the ark to make sure that rainwater would run off. The similarity of the word Ṣohar to the Arabic word ẓahrun, meaning “back,” was already pointed out by Albertus Schultens in the 18th century. This was later quoted by Solomon D. Luzzatto (ShaDaL), who offers “roof” as a possible meaning for the word Ṣohar. This theory became more and more prevalent after the discovery of the El Amarna tablets in 1887 and the deciphering of Ugaritic in 1929 which gave scholars a new corpus of ancient Western Semitic texts to compare with biblical Hebrew. Both in El Amarna and in Ugaritic we find the Western Semitic word ṣuḫru (Ugaritic: Ṣhr or Ṣr ) with the meaning “on top of.” From these discoveries, modern scholars now believe that the biblical Ṣohar is close- ly related to these other semitic words, and that all of them stem from the Akkadian word ṣēruma, meaning back or top. Accordingly, to modern scholars, our verse is probably best translated: Make a sloped roof for the ark and finish it to (a point) one cubit higher (than the level of the walls).   

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